The Niger Bend

The tradition of small figures cast of brass for the purpose of weighing gold in Africa is well-established. Although we do have a wide variety of such genuine, old gold weights for sale, these are not those. These were made exclusively for sale, reproductions. In fact, these particular forms, though very true to the lost wax brass casting technique always used to produce the real ones, would probably not have occurred among the wide variety of gold weights produced over the centuries in Ghana and other parts of West Africa. Those representing heterosexual relations would have been more likely but even those would be a small part of the total that was ever made.

These fanciful gold weights are therefore not original but was only made for the pleasure of the modern collector of African figurative art.

Since these are all individually handcast in the traditional technique, whereby the form is first fashioned by hand of wax then covered with a clay investment, each figure is different in at least a small way, sometimes in more remarkable ways.

We include here all of the different ones we have. They are all similar in size, a little more than 2″ (5 cm) long x a little more than 2″ (5 cm) tall Please specify the letter of the gold weight you prefer when you place your order.